All of Vincent B's Comments + Replies
Out of curiosity: could anybody explain what this ...
Blackmore’s report of “with more practice [the students] say that asking the question itself makes them more conscious, and that they can extend this consciousness from a few seconds to perhaps a minute or two”.
... feels like from the inside in contrast to 'not-conscious' (or aware, or self-aware, or whatever term is appropriate)? What does it mean to be "conscious [just] for a few seconds to perhaps a minute or two"? What is the rest of the time spend like, when one is not in thi...
No, it developed over the years. Honestly it just feels normal for me. I like being in control of my mind, so everything I do is somehow related to that. What I described in the previous comment is a somewhat idealized description. When I was younger, I used to experience consciousness as a stream-of-thought. I had much less control. Here are a few examples:
• I used to be annoyed at myself for forgetting important thoughts, so I got into the habit of writing them down (which now I no longer need all that much).
• At age 11, I began developing stories in my ...
This was very strange for me to read. I don't think I can quite imagine what it must be like to not be conscious all the time (though I tried).
Let me explain why, and how I experience 'being conscious'.
For me, being conscious and aware of myself, the world aroung me and what I am thinking or feeling is always ON. Being tired or exhausted may narrow this awareness down, but not collapse it. Of course, I don't remember every single thought I have over the day, but asking wether I'm "conscious right now" is pointless, beca...
1In the post it was hinted at several times that there is another way of thinking:
Are there Laws of optimal thought governing the optimal way to contextualize and caveat, which might be helpful for finding good executable recipes? The naturally Lawful thinker will immediately suspect so, even if they don't know what those Laws are. Not knowing these Laws won't panic a healthy Lawful thinker. Instead they'll proceed to look around for useful yet chaotic-seeming prescriptions to use now instead of later - without mistaking those chaoti...
New favorite example of 'undecidable':
My imagination is quite good. So when I recently read how people are liable to discount the likelihood of what they find hard to imagine and overestimate the likelihood of what they find easy to imagine, I tried to imagine what I would find hard to imagine... and found this hard to imagine.
Which means I find it easy to imagine something which I find hard to imagine, since I just imagined it! But then it is no longer hard to imagine, so I can't have found it... But if I haven't found it, then it's hard to find; so I can imagine it...